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Originally Posted by Rex114
I'm going to say how I, personally, myself, felt about what Dave said during the Kickoff. I was frustrated, angry and disappointed. After 4 years of being on a student run, student built team, putting in hours upon hours of hard work into our teams robot year after year, being told that the entire time I was "missing the point"?
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FIRST is here in order to train our youth on how to run and advance the engineering world.
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From the FIRST website,
http://usfirst.org/who/default.aspx?id=34:
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Mission
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication and leadership.
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The point of FRC is to expose students to science and technology professionals. That is what differentiates it from other programs like it. I believe two years ago at kickoff, someone said something along the lines of "There are hundreds of high school programs out there that stick students in a corner and tell them to build a robot. There is only one that sticks students AND adult mentors in a corner to build a robot, and that is FRC." (forgive me, I'm paraphrasing from a vague memory here.)
You had a great experience, you were inspired, I'm sure Mr. Lavery was not trying to take that away from you. Instead, what I think he was trying to say was that sure, you can do cool things as a student built, run etc team, but what you can learn from working with mentors is so much more, and is what this program is about, as it is clearly stated in all their promotional materials and in everything they as an organization do.
The people at FIRST are those who determine what the program is supposed to be about. They have made it crystal clear that FRC teams are supposed to have students and mentors working together to build a robot. Unless the message we are given from on high changes, I see no reason for teams with mentors to stop what they're doing.
If you disagree with this philosophy, FRC is obviously not the competition for you. There are plenty of other competitions out there that share your philosophy. It has been made clear that FRC is not one of them.